Exclusive cover reveal: 'The Sword Dancer' by Jeannie Lin

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HEA does it again! OK, HEA didn't do it, but we GET to do it: We're unveiling the cover of Jeannie Lin's upcoming Harlequin release (in June), The Sword Dancer. Jeannie also shares the five ingredients that helped her come up with the tastiness that is The Sword Dancer. Jackie Chan, anyone?

Jeannie: Readers are always asking, "Where do you get your ideas?" The answer varies, whether the ideas come from historical research or a couple rounds of "what if?"

The Sword Dancer is the start of a new series and was created out of an eclectic mix of interests, so here are the five main ingredients that contributed to this tale.

1) Johanna Lindsey and red-hot romances

The author who really hooked me into romance was Johanna Lindsey. It all started when my BFF and I would borrow books off of her mother's shelf. Fires of Winter by Johanna Lindsey was the third romance novel I ever read. The heroine is a Celt and the hero a Viking; both warriors, both sworn enemies. High drama, high stakes. I devoured it.

Since then, I've always loved a romance that involved two very fiery, very physical individuals. One where the heroine can give as good as she gets.

2) Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu

The Tang Dynasty was a golden age of literature and poetry, and I like to read translations of the poems to get a feel for how to create prose that sounds period appropriate, but that doesn't sound stiff and stilted. Because people in the past didn't go around sounding all stiff and formal to each other, you know? There's one famous poem by Du Fu titled Observing the Sword Dance Performed by a Disciple of Madame Gongsun. I was fascinated by both the subject, sword dancing, as well as the melancholy tone as the poet reflected upon a bygone era.

3) Jackie Chan

Who doesn't love Jackie Chan? He kicks butt, does his own stunts, and then makes you laugh on top of all that.

Jackie Chan was originally trained in the Beijing opera, which is very acrobatic and physically demanding. When he was young, he and his troupe were dubbed the "Seven Little Fortunes" and the troupe leader had the bright idea to hire them out for martial arts stunts.

Because of Jackie's background, I was inspired to combine my heroine's dance background with her fighting skill. The action scenes in The Sword Dancer are all a nod to Jackie's unique fight choreography.

4) Parkour/freerunning

Have you seen Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with all the wire stunts? That sort of lighter-than-air fighting technique, affectionately dubbed wire-fu, is a staple for the martial arts action/adventure (wuxia) genre. But to make that sort of stunt work in a historical romance novel as opposed to a fantasy novel, I had to ground it in reality.

Jeannie Lin, author of "The Sword Dancer."

So I sought out a local freerunning team, Team TRICKset, and interviewed them about freerunning, Parkour and martial arts tricking, paying particular attention to why they ran, what sort of feeling of freedom and empowerment it gave them, and what went through their minds when they encountered a new landscape or obstacle. Those ideas not only became central to the heroine's character, but also to the conflict and romance in The Sword Dancer.

Judge Dee is often dubbed the "Chinese Sherlock Holmes." In the course of each mystery, Judge Dee travels to different cities and locations to investigate and the reader is introduced to the colorful world of imperial China in the process.

Instead of having a magistrate acting as the primary investigator, I introduced a thief-catcher, the "famous" Thief-catcher Han, who leads the reader through the landscape of Tang Dynasty China, meeting interesting characters and exploring new settings, all in the pursuit of the one thief he can't seem to hold onto, the Sword Dancer Li Feng.

So given all of these delicious ingredients that went into the book, I was thrilled to see the final cover for The Sword Dancer.

What do you think? Doesn't it make your heart go pitter patter?

Here's the blurb for The Sword Dancer:

The thief who stole his heart …

Sword dancer Li Feng is used to living life on the edge of the law-a woman alone in the dangerous world of the Tang Dynasty has only her whirlwind reflexes to trust. She will discover the truth about her past, even if that means outwitting the most feared thief-catcher of them all ...

Relentless, handsome and determined, Han sees life and love as black and white. Until he finally captures the spirited, courageous Li Feng, who makes him question everything he thought he knew about right and wrong. Soon he's faced with an impossible choice: betray the elusive sword dancer he is learning to love, or trust his long-disregarded heart and follow her to dangerous, tempting rebellion ...

To find out more about Jeannie and her books, you can visit her website, www.jeannielin.com.